It's a cake, it's a firetruck, no it's both. Oh, and a finished knit!

Max's 4th birthday was this Saturday, and to celebrate, we had way too many kids at our house! The decibel level was rather high. But they seemed to have fun. Colin made an awesome cake in his family's tradition of 3-D creations: a firetruck. Pretty cool, eh?

Max loved his cake, but wasn't sure about the attention when it was time to sing. Didn't catch a photo, but he ducked his head under the table until we were done. Here's the candle lighting ceremony.
And here's a photo of Max's schoolmate Alex getting ready to play "Pin the Dalmation on the Fire Truck" courtesy of Aunt Noelle.
Oh, and did you notice that swell vest I'm sporting? It's mine. I made it. My very first non-scarf apparel knit that turned out to be actually wearable! In fact, I've gotten many compliments all three times I've worn it thus far (and not all were in response to my fishing for them)!

Here are some closer (but a little too muddy) shots:

Specs:

• Yarn: Random wool yarn (Ambrosia in Van Gogh by Sierra Crafts) from Ben Franklin Crafts, in a nice denimy/nubbly blue - halfway between worsted and bulky weight.
• Pattern: Boogie from Knitty.com.
• Needles: US size 10 1/2 circulars and straight.
• Modifications: made it a little longer, added cables on the back, added short-row shaping so it has a little curve for my curves (thanks to Ann's friend Erin for the knitting blog posts that mentioned this technique).

Now on the needles: Rowan's JoJo in Summer Tweed: Smoulder, if I can ever get the gauge right. It's supposed to be in Natural Silk Aran, which is slightly lighter weight, at 19st/4in, but the tweed is coming out 16st/4in, and rather than having a stiff-as-a-board fabric, I'm trying to calculate the difference. Plus, Rowan only goes up to a 40-inch bust, and well, I've got a different size. So, first I cast on 116 stitches and knit for about 4 inches, measured, frogged it all back, tried again with 90 stitches, knit an inch, measured, frogged, and trying again with 100. Third time's the charm? All this because I couldn't get 24 balls of Debbie Bliss' Alpaca Silk Aran in Berry for three more weeks, so I couldn't start the cable sweater (pattern 15) from the Winter 2006/2007 Vogue, so I had to find a substitute project. Sigh.